“Get away from me, get *away* from me!” But Elberta had only been dreaming. Something was after her, something that came up from the swamp, down that very path over there. She was in the middle of the swamp that use to be a lake and she couldn’t remember how she got here. She sheathed the knife she drew in the panic of waking up. “All a dream,” she said, trying to comfort herself and not doing a very good job. Something *was* here.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0024, 0414, Mountain Lake, Omega
It was starting to rain. She was no more closer to finding the girl than when she began. But she *was* the girl, hmph. Butterflies… that’s how she remembered. Butterflies lead down a path to the Pond of Memory. But the Mountain Lakes region is complicated, with many peaks to traverse. She was on top of one of these peaks, but Elberta didn’t know which one. Just a peak. Paradise; ecstasy.
She held tight under an eave to get out of the raindrops. Someone was going to come out of that door over there.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0024, 0413, Mountain Lake, Omega
Those black, white (yellow) and red ladies said I didn’t have to stay here that long and that’s probably a good thing. A little too grown up here, in that things are too *big* for me… like this chair. Can hardly see over the edge of the table!
But those flowers are nice in front of me, although they make me do weird things when “touched,” like touch my toes — touch for touch. Maybe I don’t want to touch my toes, I say back. And then they quickly relent — they always do — returning me to my sitting position in the chair. Strange also that they don’t have a vase.
And certainly the *butterflies* all around are a perk-me-up in these dark dark times. I lost Carolin! I lost Mabel and now I’ve lost my next best friend, the one that remained behind and helped me through the first dark times. Robert! she remembered. I totally forgot about Mabel’s lime green robot stored away after her — not *demise*: disappearance. Carolin said he would be too hard to take care of now that Mabel is gone, thus the dismantling, the storage. But, oh Robert, I *do* need you now. You were the third best friend, after second, Carolin, and first, Mabel. But do I want to put you in the same jeopardy that they, unbeknownst to me, were in — just by association? How hard would it be to put him back together? Carolin said: near impossible, when she brought it up every now and then, especially when she remembered the most times small sometimes not as small difference between a second best friend (Carolin) and a first (Mabel). Third could help fill the gap and more. Why *not* try now — what’s to lose (except a 3rd best friend)? So when the black, white (yellow) and red ladies come back I’ll tell them. Maybe they can help with the reactivation, come to think of it. They do seem to feel genuinely sorry for my plight — kicked out of Green Yarn, a thought of *new* home, and then turning into a wanderer again, first at the End of Time caves like before, and then — kicked out again. The black, white (yellow) and red swooped down in their spaceship: set down the cow they had in their tractor beam and latched onto me instead; brought me up in their ship. I wasn’t scared, strangely, like I was use to it. I had nothing to lose. They offered me — hope.
Thus the stay in the treehouse. “You’ll be safe here — for a time,” they collectively said before whisking away back into space.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0024, 0412, Mountain Lake, Omega
“She comes here every day, and every day a different game. I haven’t seen a repeat yet. She must be testing the atmosphere, maybe making sure it isn’t poison. 4 games left in the cache. I predict an actual, breathing human — *not* a mascot — will be arriving in the week. Wanna bet on it?”
“No, I’ll take your word for it. You’ve been here a lot longer than me. In this Castle Town. Isn’t that what it’s usually called?”
—–
We were taking a break from strategizing. I turned away for a moment, tired of looking them in the eye. I’d figured something out. Mascots — that’s what they were. Only mascots. Not real atall. Only symbols of a writer… and an artist. The two aspects of *me*. Maybe it *is* destiny that I take Baker Bloch’s place as leader of the blog and allow him to ascend to the White Palace to rejoin Hucka Doobie. I’ll have to talk to Charlene about it. But I’m kind of finished with these two.
He takes another sip of wine. They hadn’t even asked for anything to drink, not water, not booze. Nothing. That was the first big tip-off.
—–
“It’s time to play rock, paper, scissors, Barry, to see which one of us goes to Castle Town.”
“Oh all right,” answers Barry.
“Ready? One, two…”
—–
“Oh, and also a pad or something that I can write on, thanks.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0024, 0410, Castle Town+, Jeogeot, Omega, Southern
I decided to have tea with another while I was there, perhaps the brains of the operation. One Fern Stalin, not a redhead perhaps surprisingly but still eating at commissary kitchens with the commoners. I ask her about the operation.
“We created it all,” she was explaining. “This art town — we’ve taking over the whole island, actually. And we’ve just plain taken over, period. Your rule is at an end. You should have invested in the Toddles storyline more, gone all 200 meters worth on it.” Brains indeed.
“Toddles could come back.”
“Hmph,” she expressed and turned her head to the left, to the sea. “That island over there is as much toast as your wee yellow one. She’s stuck in the pavement, under the street actually. She has no more power.” She ends with finality.
“New Island?” I questioned, seeing the direction she indicated. I tried to decipher the meaning to this clue. Photo-novel 9 was all about New Island, but we move away from it in novel 10 to the present one, across that bridge just over there, the New Island bridge. But this was Fisher’s Island. *They* have taken over Fisher’s Island. What did this mean? A return to the Omega continent? I as Baker Bloch wasn’t sure this was a good idea. We had kind of wrapped all that up in novel 10, especially as extended to novel 11. Omega continent: covered.
“We move you where we desire.” Witch power she was on about again. I recall that a witch lived on New Island, and probably still does. The same or connected? I ask her this. She got up and ran across the bridge we just spoke about at an impossible speed for a normal person. The she ran back — the path was smoking where she sprinted so fast she was going. “Forgot my lipstick,” she offered as an excuse for leaving, then applied it to her lips. But then it became a piece of straw as she changed into the next (Lichen Roosevelt). We had a nice discussion as well but it was more oriented to comedy instead of gravity.
“And that’s why the French don’t wash,” she ended what I later understood was part of her monologue.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0024, 0409, France, New Island, Omega, Wallytown/Fishers Island
“I feel like I’m at a dead end, Wheeler.”
“Hold still, please,” requested Wendy Wilson Wheeler, painting flowers instead of Baker Bloch but not telling him this.
“It’s just…”
“Are you not happy that I finally found my husband?” Significant pause. “Because I lost him for a while.” She decided to paint the blooms the same color as her skin this go around. *She* is blooming. Is that good?
“Sure, sure, er, Wheeler.” Wendy had stopped asking him to call her by her character name. She is Wheeler, true. And she’s found her Axis. “What of, um, the other one?”
“You know who the other one is, *blog leader*.”
“Sure, sure, eh, Blob? he he.”
“Listen, I can keep them both. I’m a big girl. I can have more than one [boy].”
“Is it fair to *them*, though?”
“They’re the same. What do I care?”
“What *do* you care? I mean, you already had Tr-oop. Opp, Tropp.”
“I like to play one off the other. It makes me feel… important. Needed. I am Queen of Our Second Lyfe. But you are not the King. You are like… a Prime Minister, yes; with all the useful stuff, the power. I am more a figurehead.”
“Can I move now?” Baker Bloch’s neck was beginning to hurt. He’d stood in the same place too long. 156/156. Right on the Diagonal of the sim they’re in, and the only place in the room it falls on. So he has to stay, and Wheeler tells him this.
“You are at a dead end,” she reinforced after a while, washing her paintbrush of pink in the turpentine jar. “It’s time for the witches to take over.”
Earlier:
“Okay I’m done with this one. Let’s move to the other side. More light.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0024, 0408, Omega, Wallytown/Fishers Island
Not here, eh? thinks visiting Wheeler from over at NWES City. He said he’s *always* here, spinning around the place on that oh-so-handy skateboard of his. And I so wanted to thank him for the other day. Oh well… just have to tell the others here that I came by; leave it at that. Maybe next time. I’ll try to message the little fellow.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0023, 0209, New Island, Springfeld
The blue eye is closed on the Moth Man as he stares out at Bottle Mound on Fishers Island. Interesting. Noting.
On to Wallytown proper to view the bell shaped rise with the crashed UFO beside it on the beach from a different angle, as it turned out.
“He won’t get off my car, Mr. Z,” complained Zapppa’s seated brother-cousin Zipppy, a well thought of Wallytown mechanic in its California half. Nevada beyond the wall is a different story, where he’s wanted for at least 3 criminal acts: grand larceny, manslaughter, murder even. “Screams he’s in love with it and wants to speak to someone named Wheeler about buying; thinks he can get a good deal that way. Thanks for coming by and helping me. It’s kind of an antique you know. It’ll cost him X amount of dollars. Could he just be talking about buying the wheels off this jalopy? And since it’s split in two pieces currently to make a novelty couch, we’d have to charge mucho extra to put it back together. Could he be… insane? Mad?”
“I’ll see what I can do,” replied Zapppa, who was indeed Mr. Z but not the one we’ve already met. Better resist call him that from now on. And we’ve already also run across someone with the tag of “Mad”. Best not to use that again as well. Let’s just go with Mercury. Mercury X. Mr. X. Because that’s what they’ll have to charge him. And let’s similarly name Zipppy Mr. Y. Although this is probably a one-off for him in this here photo-novel; we’ll stick with Zipppy, then. And Mercury X. Mercury X. Rising, let’s say, with the X silent. Like the original Star Wars movie from 1898.
They end up just deciding to give the car away for basically free. Madness. All four of ’em: W mixed in with the other three now and turning them all back into letters, shall we put it.
Wheeler (Ms. W) then returned to her well placed friends at the Annapolis MD consignment shop we saw toward the end of photo-novel 20. She had no need for money with besties like that.
Dorothy inside promptly wrote W a check for X amount of linden dollars to make up for Y and Z’s loss.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0022, 0313, Wallytown/Fishers Island
King Lewis Johnson the Third’s canal boat arrived at quarter past 2 in the morning’s evening’s night day. Time was wonky in this part of old or original WES, merely the precursor, as it turned out, of the considerably larger New WES constructed further up the western Jeogeot coastline, or what was soon shortened to NWES, along with the overarching New WES Island — NWES Island now, with further distance put between it and the Omega continent’s New Island as well. The Moth Man would be pleased. He’s written a novel about *his* New Island and doesn’t want another place of that name to come between him and fame. I don’t either (!). His New Island should be unique. A no. 10 type of paradise, hidden until now. Bravo!
http://oceansanddreams.com/blog/2020/9/22/update-on-the-hum
Back to King Lewis Johnson the Third’s visit to Mad Anthony’s Nightfire settlement based on the Isle of Karma roleplaying sim. “We call those type of vehicles channel boats on Mars where I’m from. You’ll need a crowbar (to understand).” Mad Anthony, new lover of Linda Halsey, was clearly insane to think he was from Mars. Gary his manservant concubine beside him gently reminded the old, partially senile man that his home planet was Venus. He was not all right tonight. Marty’s Illuminati spell to soften his brains to tin or lead was working perfectly, another type of 10.
—–
“It is time for me to go back home to my neighboring sim, Anthony. I’ll pick up the canal, um, *channel* boat later. I wish you well on your brain issue.”
“Good night King Lewis Johnson the Third.” He looked at the sim boundary sign from his side. “You are indeed The Mann!”
“Thank you.”
Poor pitiful thing, he thinks while walking away.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0022, 0310, Jeogeot, New Island, West End
There was a giant book, just out of sight. 6 fingered people.
Toothpick wants to dig himself a hole and hide away from his sister problems forever.
But Baker Bloch won’t let him.
“Wake up in there! Time to help me out again, ha.”
Supper Man is determined to work off those extra pounds he’s put on lately before his marriage to Dinner Girl Saturday after next Saturday after next Saturday. Super!
I wanted to fit this in here too. Meat City, a suburb of NWES City. A paper named Post formerly owned by Grahams.
Strange do’in’s in this here NWES Island. Like New Island but different. Less sand for one thing. More green, if not more grass. But I think the two are related. Both Big Escapes, perhaps. 10’s. The search for perfection in a microcosm.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0022, 0307, Black Ice, Marwood, Meat City, New Island, NWES Island
Sunklands 